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Facebook says 3,000 Russia-linked ads appeared during US elections, pledges to hire 1,000 people to fight fake news

Facebook says 3,000 Russia-linked ads appeared during US elections, pledges to hire 1,000 people to fight fake news

The announcement came as the leading social network turned over to Congress some 3,000 Russia-linked ads that appeared to use hot-button issues to turn people against one another ahead of last year’s US election.

Facebook says 3,000 Russia-linked ads appeared during US elections, pledges to hire 1,000 people to fight fake news (Representative Image)

San Francisco:

Facebook has said it will hire more than 1,000 people to thwart deceptive ads crafted to knock elections off course.

The announcement came as the leading social network turned over to Congress some 3,000 Russia-linked ads that appeared to use hot-button issues to turn people against one another ahead of last year’s US election.

“Today we are delivering those ads to congressional investigators,” Facebook vice president of global policy Joel Kaplan said in an online post.

“Many appear to amplify racial and social divisions.”

The ads appeared to be linked to a Russian entity known as the Internet Research Agency, and violated Facebook policies because they came from inauthentic accounts, according to Kaplan.

“Aggressive steps” by Facebook will include hiring more than 1,000 people to bolster its global ads review teams in the coming year, Kaplan said.

Some 470 accounts spent a total of approximately $100,000 between June 2015 to May 2017 on ads that touted fake or misleading news or drove traffic to pages with such messages, a Facebook official said.